


Moments

by Glare



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-23 12:56:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3769315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glare/pseuds/Glare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments between Harrison Wells and Barry Allen</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Pipeline

**Author's Note:**

> Oh lord, it's been so long since I've written anything, but my muse will not leave me be over these two. This has been written out for weeks, but I've been terrified to post it. Oops. Apologies in advance if they're all OOC. Not really tagged to any episode specifically. Not beta'd.

Harrison Wells find Barry curled up on the floor, staring at the large door separating himself from the prisoners caged within the pipeline the way he had when he’d received the news of his father’s abduction. The boy doesn’t acknowledge him as he wheels himself closer. Harrison doesn’t expect him to. He knows Barry has begun to see the cracks in his façade; knows the boy will continue to pick at the edges of his mask even if his hands come away bloody. It’s only a matter of time before his carefully constructed disguise is pulled apart at the seams, revealing the truth to Barry’s sharp eyes and ending their fragile relationship.

He’s surprised when, instead of drawing away, Barry shuffles closer. The youth pushes himself across the tiled floor until he’s leaning against the side of the chair, pressed against the cool leather of the armrest. Harrison can’t stop himself from reaching out, carding his fingers through the boy’s hair, still mussed from the cowl of his suit. Barry doesn’t flinch-doesn’t shake off his advances with sharp words. A soft sigh escapes him unbidden, mirrored by the boy below his palm. 

They say nothing, but the silence is not uncomfortable. Not the way it had been in hours prior. In that moment, they’re not Harrison Wells and Barry Allen. There is no suspicion between them. No plans and secrets and hostility. They’re just _them_ , just _there_ , seeking comfort in a familiar touch after an evening more stressful than anticipated by either. Barry’s breath slows to soft, deep pulls and Harrison realizes that the boy has fallen asleep under his ministrations.

Eobard Thwane indulges himself with few more careful strokes through the Flash’s soft hair, and a treacherous part of him wishes that everything could stay this way. He and the Flash, together. Together they could conquer anything. But alas, he burned that bridge fifteen years ago when he murdered Nora Allen. He could not stop the events about to happen, even with the full strength of the Speed Force coursing through his veins. He slips from the chair, bending to press a soft kiss to the sleeping boy’s forehead, before fishing his phone from his pocket and dialing Joe West.


	2. The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this contains all of the finale spoilers. You've been warned.

“Run, Barry, run.”

In that moment, in the cool of the cortex, Eobard’s world shifts. Tilts on its axis of hate and rage to make room for something. Something familiar and not that’s bubbling up in his chest because that is the _Flash_. Years of darkness are chased away by the light of childish wonder that comes with knowing that Barry Allen is doing the impossible. He listens through the coms as the storm on the other end rages on, hears when it suddenly stops, relishes in knowing that the Flash has won. It’d been such a long time since the boy’s heroics bred these feelings in him. By the time Barry returns, his mind is already churning, already reconfiguring plans fifteen years in the making. He wants to go home, has to go home, but maybe he can repair the destruction he’s left in his wake.

“No! Don’t you ever say that to me!” Barry snarls brokenly through the glass when Eobard tells the boy that he loves him.

His eyes are wide with confusion and fear and he looks more the part of caged animal than Eobard ever has during his imprisonment in the pipeline. Thawne wants nothing more to be out of that box, to be able to comfort, to run his hands through Barry’s hair like that night so long ago and tell him that everything would be alright. But he can’t. All he can do is press himself against the glass and try to explain the best he can.

“Run, Barry, run.” It falls off his tongue somewhere between a prayer and a confession.

Barry races through the pipeline, reaching speeds the others would have never dreamed, and Eobard watches with a sorrowful smile. He coaches Barry like has for the last year of their lives, whispers words of instruction and encouragement until Barry is suddenly gone. In his place is the wormhole, bright and beautiful.

If that was to be the last time he gets to watch Barry run, he would take it. He would hold it close to his chest and remember the day Barry Allen ran for _him_. No Cisco or Caitlin listening in. Just he and Barry and the Speed Force that connected them. For once, not reverses, but one in the same. The way it was always meant to be. He would treasure those moments like the gifts that they were.

And then everything goes so wrong. Barry leaps from the wormhole and the pod shatters around him. Eobard tumbles to the floor, Barry beside him, and something inside him _burns_ in a way it hasn’t since the day that Barry first ran. Heartbreak.

“Why didn’t you save her?” He cries in anguish.

This had been his chance to fix it—to fix everything. His final gift to Barry Allen, and the boy threw it right back in his face. What comes next is a blur, it always is between them, threats he doesn’t mean tumbling from his lips because he just wanted to go _home_. He wanted to go and leave Barry Allen with something precious. Absolute proof that Eobard Thawne loved him, even if the boy himself would never remember the man who gave it.

Then the gunshot. Eddie Thawne is bleeding out onto the cold, cement floor of the pipeline and there’s nothing any of them can do to stop it. Cisco explains why, so clever that one, and Eobard knows that there’s no chance for him. They all know how this is going to end. So he does something reckless. Summoning the remaining vestiges of Speed in his cells, Eobard’s in front of the boy before anyone can react. He catches the sleek red fabric of the Flash uniform, tugs Barry to him, and presses their lips together.

The startled squeaks of the onlookers mean nothing, are unheard when Barry returns the kiss. It’s sweet and soft like nothing they are. Like everything they could have been, if not for the twisted past they shared. Barry’s own final gift. Eobard curses the gloves on his hands when he tangles his fingers in the hair at the nape of Barry’s neck.

Iris sobs as Eddie draws his final breath and moments later Eobard is gone, taken away by time itself, but the kiss lingers on Barry’s lips long after he’s gone. It’s not the only thing. Barry can hear it in his head as he races through the streets, towards the black hole that threatened to swallow everything up, the ghost of a whisper.

_Run, Barry, run._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God damn everything about the finale. I cried. A lot. I was not prepared.


End file.
